The Mediator: A Parable

October 31, 2017 marks a monumental moment for the church and the world. It was on that day 500 years ago that Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses to door at Wittenberg.  This is typically noted as the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. It was a moment that sparked a movement that continues to influence not only the Christian faith but also daily life. To celebrate, I am planning to do a whole month of worship and preaching around Martin Luther. This sermon started the series. I did a biography of Martin Luther's life and why he wrote the 95 Theses.

6 Okt 201722min

In this sermon, I walk through the Lord's Prayer not as a prayer that we should pray all the time but as an outline for prayer that Jesus used to teach his disciples how to pray.

25 Sep 201715min

In this longer sermon I give a crash course on how to read and study the Bible. I also talk along the way about the tools you need for good Bible study. There is also a handout for this sermon in pictures below.

22 Sep 201729min

In this sermon, I continue to talk about the need to put faith in practice by talking about the Bible. I argue that it is not an instruction book, but a library of people's relationships with God. I use the story of Jonah to show how arguing about it can often lead us to miss the point.

13 Sep 201726min

In this series, I am taking a look at how we practice our faith, particularly in Bible study and prayer. In this starting sermon, I take a look at how we make a mistake by defining our faith as a belief system instead of a relationship to which we belong and behaviors to support that belonging. Our theology/beliefs give language to our experiences of God, and trying to talk of our beliefs without an actual experience of God is harmful to our faith. I am indebted to Diana Butler Bass and her book Christianity After Religion for the concept of the reversale of Belong, Behave, and Believe.

8 Sep 201725min

I end this sermon series which I have enjoyed so much by one of my favorite Bible stories. It is the conversion of Paul. It has so much to teach us about the gospel and about how to listen to and follow God's calling in our lives.

30 Aug 201724min

Here I take a look at the call of Timothy, which is not a spectacular story. He was trained in the faith by his mother and grandmother and annointed by the elders of his congregation. Paul writes to Timothy to encourage him as Timothy seems to be fading in his zeal. This is a lot like us--a more normal call and trouble persisting.

30 Aug 201726min

This sermon looks at the story of Esther, particularly the political intrigue that provides the context of the story and Mordecai’s calling of Esther to action. The prayer at the end of my sermon was written by by Richard Einerson, and published in Prayers of the People. I found it at: https://re-worship.blogspot.com/2012/09/pastoral-prayer-esther.html

15 Aug 201731min